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Paladin: Guide by Willriker/Part III
<-- Previous page | Paladin: Guide by Willriker | [[Paladin: Guide by Willriker/Part IV|Next page -->]] |width="50%" valign="top"| : |} :This Figure was derived from :http://mysterytour.web.infoseek.co.jp/ffxi/us/index.html :You could write this down if you wanted to, but there is a pattern. Your Shield skill will always cap out at your Sword skills cap. And, your parry skill will always cap out at your evasion cap. (As a Paladin, I cannot vouch for any other job). Leveling Your Shield Skill :Now that we know our capping levels, the difference between shields, and how shields work, I will get into how to level your shield out nicely. Before you read I would like to inform you that I cap off shield every level. At one point I actually did a survey of Paladins shield skill values and I had more skill in shield than Paladins 7 levels above me. I recently did the survey again, and I have more than almost every non-end game Paladin out there. I also told many younger Paladins in game how to do it, and they achieved similar results. So, this method has been tested for consistency. :Ok, I must tell you now; if you plan on leveling your shield skill you have to go all in with it… It has become much easier to cap off shield since the before mentioned update, but that does not mean that it is easy. And I can’t stress that enough, it’s a long slow hard road to capping of shield (well only if you have lost ground to make up for). There are many factors that you need to handle in order to get your character to level its shield effectively. But the good news is that there is only one principle to understand: You Will Never Get A Shield Skill Up If Your Shield Did Not Activate!!! :Evasion… Evasion is your number one nemesis when leveling shield. If you spent any time tanking as paladin or warrior you already know that this is the first skill to cap off, always. And at first glance we like that, I mean if you dodge the attack you took no damage right? Well yes, that is true. But in later levels having shield leveled just makes you take so much less damage than evasion (alone). And that’s your job; take as little damage as possible while holding hate. So, I cannot urge you enough to place an emphasis on shield (till it caps every level) while your character is young. Please remember the one principle ‘’’’’You Will Never Get A Shield Skill Up If Your Shield Did Not Activate!!!’’’’’ This is not like evasion, where you can get hit, not evaded, and still get a skill up. It will never happen. Furthermore, if you evaded an attack…well you evaded the attack and therefore have no chance of blocking the attack! This is the main purpose of the minus evasion gear, like cavaliers mantle, you must gimp the hell out of your evasion. Sorry not nice to hear, but it WILL make you better. Think of it analogous to the worst tasting cough syrup you have ever tasted. Now don’t get me wrong, if you can find a +Vitality item (A decent one) to take the place of a –evasion item you may want to go that route, but –evasion will help you level shield skill. :Shield seems to be attached to your agility statistic. This is why you see so many Paladins running around with Drone Earrings (+3 agility), it is also the elusive reason as to why Agility is listed on other strategy guides as being important to a Paladin even though they never seem to tell you why. Agility really does make a difference. :One sad part of leveling shield and parry for that matter is that it is impossible to cap it off solo, and that goes with skill-up parties also, the only time efficient way to level it is within your exp parties… yes that can suck. And people will ask you why you are wearing the gear you are wearing. All I had to tell them is that my shield skill is 10% higher than other paladins shield skill at that level because I am wearing gear like this, and instead of being upset I always got a /hurray! :Also, you need to fight things that attack really fast, monk class mobs like spiders or anything that loves using double attack (like raptors) will become great friends…. The more times they attack, the more of a chance you will have to get your shield to activate. Yes the reasoning is that simple and yet so damn effective. I have found that goblins offer a great skill-up opportunity for both shield and parry. There are long times when you are killing crawlers and beetles… if you care about your shield skill please try to find other things to level on. Beetles and crawlers are worthless to level shield on, but great for exp…. Shield Skill Items :On the topic of +shield skill items I have 2 things to say. While the type of shield you are carrying determines how often your shield activates, the value of your shield skill plays an even greater role. Now I’m not talking about a level 72 Paladin trying to get shield skill-ups off a level 2 enemy, which is just silly. Rather I am talking about a Paladin, with let’s say 50-shield skill, trying to level it off a mob that caps a WS of at 220. Granted this is an extreme, in general you would like to have some +shield skill on you, about enough to get your shield skill to somewhere around your swords current cap. Yes this will suck at first, but the skill-ups are what you’re after. This is what happens when you neglect a skill that’s such a pain in the butt to level…. You need to make up for lost time. However the good thing is that these +Shield items will help you level your Shield much faster. So in a couple levels you will be able to switch in your + shield items for better + vitality , + defense, or + hit point items that you are really after. Shield skill items also increase the skill cap for shield. So it your shield skill ends up being higher than your sword skill at any point don’t come back here to flame me lol. :There are 5 main factors you need to address in order to get the best shield skill-ups, and they are as follows, in order of importance: # What you fight, monk class mobs like spiders or mobs with a double attack like raptors and even goblins will give you the best skill-ups. #What Shield you use, use a class one shield or a class two shield for leveling your shield if it is truly gimped and not even close to cap. #Gimp your evasion, you don’t get hit, you won’t level shield that easy #+Agility items #+Shield skill items The Parry Skill Parry :The parry skill truly is wonderful for a Paladin, at times it’s even better than our vaunted shield skill. When Parry activates the damage from that attack is completely negated! Not only that, but if you timed a spell badly and parry kicks in your spell will still continue! Sadly, this skill Caps out at a much lower level than our shield skill, which means that it will never happen as often as our shield would. Note that the Parry skill will always cap at the same level as your evasion skill! At one point I also did a survey of Ninjas on parry skill, and when I was a 69 Paladin I had a higher skill level attained than many 75 Ninjas, which first lead me to believe that you need to be taking damage to level this attribute. Leveling the Parry Skill :Leveling parry skill is extremely similar to shield, so look at shield skill-up portion of this guide to under stand it further. It is therefore critical to pay attention to this skill as well, since the main role of a paladin is to control hate while taking as little damage as possible. There is one exception to leveling parry as apposed to leveling shield though. And that is simply change what you are fighting. I don’t have the slightest clue why, but spiders and raptors do not level you parry skill nearly as nicely as lizards. Yes that’s right I said fight lizards to level your parrying skill. Just go and try it, you won’t be let down. :Here lies our problem, we are definitely able to cap off shield or parry but capping off both becomes nearly impossible until end game. Since Paladins are more skilled with shield than parry I decided to work on that while I was in exp parties but make your own choices it is your character after all. Weapons Swords :As a Paladin in FFXI you are blessed with an A+ skill rating in the one-handed sword. Swords are not known for how much damage they do. Out side of your weapon skills do not expect to keep up with a melee in damage per hour using a sword, heck don't even get the idea that your weapon skills will consistently out due a melee either. That being said, Paladins still use this weapon more often than not. The reason for this is relatively simple, it is still the best one-handed weapon choice we have, damage per hour wise. The whole reason we insist upon using a one-handed weapon is that it also allows us to wield a shield in our off hand. That being said here is a list of the swords you will find especially useful through out your Paladins carrier. I do not intend to have this list interpreted as a cookie cutter mold of what a Paladins gear should be. That is NOT the purpose of these lists. I am merely attempting to provide you with equipment that you may find interesting during your path as Paladin. Therefore I am not listing every sword in the game and level ranges you should be using them at. This is just a list of the stuff that well, it's the good stuff. : :This was basically just common sense type of stuff, by the time you achieve this point in the game I am SURE that you will be able to figure out what to get. Just focus on your role in party/alliance and equip yourself accordingly. Staves :It should be noted that Staffs are two-handed weapons and as such you lose the ability to equip a shield in your off hand. This is a major down side to the use of staffs as will be discussed later. I am not going to bother discussing staffs like Signet staff and trick staff, these are simply support staffs that every job has access to. Instead I am going to discuss the 2 staffs that are pretty much a MUST have for a Paladin. They are as follows: : Great Swords :These are for Paladins who are not tanking, a properly equipped Paladin can do an incredible amount of damage, but a Paladin equipped to do damage would not be the best tank, as it would require you to sacrifice your tanking equipment (for the time being) for equipment that would let you hit the enemy. :Unless skilling up, Paladins won’t be seen sporting a Great Sword until well into the later levels of the game, and even then the conventional wisdom is that it isn’t worth the trouble. Remember a Great Sword is two handed, and therefore will not allow you to equip a shield in your off hand. :In theory it looks like Paladin would be nice with a Great Sword, after all Paladin’s have access to almost every Great sword out there. But until you are at a level where acquiring a great sword would allow you to one shot lesser enemies to farm quicker, or have the Great Sword skilled up high enough to unleash a nice weapon skill against a NM or HNM great sword is not for you. It is definitely not for experience parties. That being said, a Paladin must choose when the time is correct for him/her to equip this especially nasty piece of equipment. :Some nice Great Swords for a Paladin include, but are not limited to: : Swords or Staves, Which is Better? :Well, as we see as Paladins we have yet another dilemma. Either we go out and level our shields to use a sword/shield combination or go out and just go for earth staff. Some people will tell you to use an earth staff in a party at least for a few levels, I think this is an incredible mistake. :Not only will you lose out on multiple levels worth of time to skill up your shield (which isn’t easy in and of it's self) but, once you hit level 73 or so, you will notice that you are not going to fight very many IT enemies. In fact, more VT enemies will become more frequent. And unlike the previous 73 levels in the game you will actually be able to hurt these enemies. Not only that but you will be expected to not only control hate, but also finish off an enemy in the attempt to chain as many as possible all while taking as little damage as possible. To fill this role you will need to be proficient in both your sword and your shield skills. :Using an earth staff simply will not save enough damage to equate to the faster kills a sword/shield will make. That and when your shield activates it will block a larger portion of damage than your earth staff will. With a Capped Shield skill your shield (no matter the rank) will reduce more damage than your staff will. :However, you should not forget about your earth staff. Save this piece of equipment for those especially nasty fights. You know the kind… the ones that your link shell has posted in the link shell messages all week long. Or the ones that you’ve heard rumors about… the ones that have whipped out 25 level 75 characters in the course of 4 moves. The kind of fights that cannot be straight tanked, but kited around. These are the fights that your earth staff was not only made for, but also commonly used in. In these types of fights the chances of you even touching an enemy in an offensive way is slim to none, so you don’t really need to worry about inflicting damage. You only need to worry bout two things, controlling hate (solo or with a partner) and staying alive. And your earth staff will undoubtedly increase your survivability during any situation where you must kite an enemy or you facing a really tough enemy without a capped shield skill. Equipment You Should Think About General Guidelines for Choosing Equipment :Paladins enjoy a tremendous variety when choosing gear. They can wear pretty much anything out there. But as a Paladin, there are certain types of gear that you will find far more advantageous than others. Unlike other jobs in FFXI, where your priority is to hit the enemy, your priority is to receive as little damage as possible while being able to control hate. Therefore, every piece of gear that you can pick up which will reduce the amount of damage that you take is of paramount importance. I cannot stress this enough, you must keep up to date on your gear, it IS what will keep you alive, and speed up your experience parties! In your travels as Paladin you will come across many players who do not have up to date gear and can get away with it… as Paladin you do NOT have this luxury. That being said, somehow Paladin is still one of the cheaper jobs to level, where gear comes into the equation, so don’t panic. This is because, in large part, the gear we deem to be quality … all other jobs would not touch with a ten-foot pole. Less demand = less of a price :D lucky us. :When Choosing gear do so with this priority VIT > Def > AGI > HP > MP (you may want to switch the HP and MP around if you are Galka) Defense and Vitality are extremely close in importance until late levels. If you are holding onto a piece of gear which has +1 VIT for 7 levels, while there is an option of choosing a piece of equipment that has 5-10 more defense, you are doing yourself an injustice. This only applies during lower levels. At Higher levels the effect of additional defense actually caps out. By later levels I mean levels 72 and up. (72 is just an estimate don’t take it as a rule) :I MUST make it clear that just because you are a tank, it does not mean that you cannot do damage. When you are up against some especially tough things yes you want as much damage reduction as you can get your hands on. But, if you are up against something that isn’t hitting you all that hard I highly advise you to swap out some of your damage reduction gears in favor for a slightly more offensive setup. Remember you are there to take damage so the mage can use less cures. This is supposed to lead to less down time and more exp per hour. In the advent that you aren’t taking very much damage and MP isn’t an issue, do damage, and increase your exp per hour that way. It will add an element of fun to your play that you have never seen before as Paladin. :Note: I am not going to waste my time writing about racial gear or supplementary items like warp cudgel or empress rings. This is all gear Paladins should take special note of, not a set guide for wearing this while you are in levels 10-15, for example. Some Especially Nice Pieces of Gear Shields :A Paladins Shield is the best resource for avoiding damage that this job possesses. It activates a hell of a lot more than Parry does, assuming your shield skill isn’t gimped. And the shield also is a great resource for defense/vitality/agility/hp all depending on your situation. These are some of the better shields. : Head :Equipment for Paladin’s head slot really runs the gambit in terms of versatility. Check out some of the options below, there is some pretty nice stuff down there. : Neck :As for Neck pieces Paladins don’t get very many options. But that is not saying that there aren’t decent neckpieces out there. Here are some of the best. : Earrings :In General there is not very many decent pieces for this spot for a Paladin, many find something they like and keep it for 30 levels at a time. Here are some popular earrings among Paladins. : Body :This slot, along with your legs slot, offers the most defense out of any slot available. So make use of this resource. There are also many options in this slot for a Paladin, some add more survivability than others. Here are some items to think about for this slot. : Hands :There are soooo many decent pieces of hand gear. The hand gear available really runs the full gambit of uses. Its very difficult to choose which will help you more at times, but then again this is NOT a list which is meant to be the end all be all (this is what you MUST wear) Paladin gear. It’s merely something to think about. : Legs :Aside from your body slot your leg slots yield the largest defense bonuses. You can also find some pretty nice Vitality/Agility gears in this spot as well. Here are some items to think about. : Feet :With the feet gear slot a Paladin has some room to experiment. Nothing in these slots yields such a huge bonus that they cannot be replaced (with the single exception of AF or AF+1). However, here are some pieces of gear that you may want to make special note of. : Waist :Paladin really does get the short end of the stick when it comes to this slot, well it depends on how you look at it. They get a few really, really, good belts and the rest are crap. So you’ll find yourself with the same damn belt for 90% of your levels. Sure its one less thing to buy, but the lack of variety in my belt slot has been, well not fun for me. : Rings As a Paladin, your ring slots are your biggest source of Vitality and HP items, aside from your sword and shield slots. So make use of this to resource, you won’t be let down. : Ranged Weapons :Sadly you have but one truly mentionable item that will fit in your ranged weapon slot, as a Paladin. But the good news us that it is actually quite good. : Ammo :As a Paladin you will not be known for your skills on the ranged attack side of the game. But you still get access to some arrows. You also get access to another item that fits in your ammo slot, it is a throwing weapon that you do NOT want to throw. : Back :For a Paladin, the back slot has limited uses. It either can be used to gimp out your evasion (to level out shield easier) or to add Vitality. Other than that you’re not going to find much for the majority of your life as a Paladin. : ---- <-- Previous page | Paladin: Guide by Willriker | [[Paladin: Guide by Willriker/Part IV|Next page -->]]